Thursday, July 23

In his newest book, A
Fellowship of Differents, Scot McKnight takes a look at what the church is
supposed to be. To find his answer he turns to the letters by the Apostle Paul.
For many people today church is a place to go on Sundays to sing some worship
music, hear a sermon, and partake in communion. Usually that church is composed
of people very similar to us, usually sharing in the same culture. In looking
through Paul’s letters, Scot proposes that the church is meant to be something
else. The church in the New Testament is composed of a variety of people from
different areas and different cultures, they are a group of differents, but today the church is
often composed of a fellowship of those who are alike.

Wednesday, July 1

Are you a budding photographer? Does nature photography
especially interest you? If so, then John Shaw has written a guide just for
you. His book includes sections on gear, camera basics, composition, close-ups
and more. While he often does go into some of the basics, Shaw also assumes you
have at least some knowledge of cameras. Maybe you’ve ever touched a DSLR, but
you at least know how to point and shoot a camera. Shaw also realizes that people
reading this book may already have some DSLR experience.

Coming into this book I already have DSLR experience and
enjoy photography as a hobby. I use a Canon 60D (Shaw prefers Nikon but also
knows that everyone has their preference) and already had an understanding of
aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Despite this, the intro sections served as a
nice refresher course and in some cases gave me some insight that I didn’t have
before, especially when talking about aperture and shutter priority. I had
never used those settings before but am now interested in trying out aperture
priority sometime.